CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With one suspicious snap of the steering wheel, Clint Bowyer changed the outcome of a race and maybe the championship, too.

Accidental or intentional, his spin in the closing laps at Richmond International Raceway set in motion a chain of events that has shrouded the start of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship and raised many questions about the potential for a race team to manipulate pivotal moments of a race.

NASCAR President Mike Helton told The Associated Press before Sunday’s Truck Series race at Iowa that officials in the scoring tower did not immediately see anything to believe Bowyer’s spin with seven laps remaining at Richmond was suspicious. The spin came while Newman was leading and brought out the caution that set in motion a chain of events that cost Newman both the race and a berth in the 12-driver Chase field. He was battling Truex for the final spot.

“We didn’t see anything that indicated that anything like that was taking place. And it’s natural when everything was as close as it was between who was going to get in and not go in to scratch your heads and try to figure out and wonder why,” Helton said. “But we didn’t see anything initially (Saturday) night that indicated that, but certainly we’ll go back through all the video and everything to be sure, because we take the responsibility very serious to be sure that it’s — that everybody has had a fair chance.”

But an ESPN replay that included communication between Bowyer and his team implied the spin was deliberate. Bowyer was shown the video after the race and denied he spun intentionally, a claim he repeated throughout the post-race activities.

“We had a flat tire or something. It just snapped around,” Bowyer said, later adding, “I know it’s a lot of fun for you guys to write a lot of wacky things. Go ahead if you want to, get creative. But don’t look too much into it.”

In-car audio framed the situation as his crew goading him into spinning his car to bring out the yellow in an effort to prevent Newman from winning the race.

“Thirty-nine is going to win the race,” Bowyer was told over his radio.

NASCAR did not have access to that footage until well after the race, and it is presumably among the materials Helton was reviewing Sunday.

Also, it became apparent early Sunday morning that Bowyer and teammate Brian Vickers further aided Truex by taking a dive over the final three laps.

When the race resumed with three laps to go, four-time series champion Jeff Gordon was poised to claim the 10th spot in the Chase, and Joey Logano was ahead of Truex in position to claim the second wild-card.

But Bowyer and Vickers both made pit stops in the final three laps that allowed Logano to improve his finishing position and move ahead of Gordon to claim the 10th Chase berth. That bumped Gordon from contention and freed the wild card for Truex. Gordon was not eligible for the wild card.

The AP reviewed team communications for both Bowyer and Vickers on Sunday, and Vickers was told by MWR general manager Ty Norris to pit because “we need that 1 point.”

“We’re probably going to pit here on green,” Norris says.

“Are you talking to me?” a surprised Vickers asks.

Vickers continued to question the call, at one point asking, “I don’t understand, pit right now?”

“You’ve got to pit this time. We need that 1 point,” Norris replies.

“10-4. Do I got a tire going down?” Vickers asked.

Vickers then pitted as the field went green. When he asked after if his crew found anything with the tire, Norris replied, “I’ll see you after the race, Brian, I owe you a kiss.”

Bowyer’s radio communication was not as verbose, but he had already pitted twice after his spin, once to change the tire and once for Pattie to double-check for any damage. The team then called him down pit road a third time with no explanation just as the field went green.

It’s not uncommon in NASCAR for teammates to help each other with track position, so on its face, the calls for the two MWR drivers to pit aren’t that egregious. But added with Bowyer’s spin, fans were crying foul over MWR’s actions, especially since it cost both Gordon and Newman spots in the 10-race Chase that begins Sunday at Chicago.

Gordon posted on Twitter that he felt bad for both himself and Newman.

“Was feeling pretty bad about missing the #Chase but after seeing all the details coming out now I feel even worse for @RyanNewman39,” he tweeted on Sunday.

Newman downplayed the significance of Bowyer’s spin on Saturday night because he said he still had a chance to win the race if his pit crew had delivered after the caution.

“They are teammates. I don’t know if (Bowyer) looked at the scoring pylon, knew I was leading, it doesn’t matter,” Newman said. “If that was the case, I’ll find out one way or the other. At the same time, we still had the opportunity to make our own destiny and win it on pit road, and we didn’t.”

Since multi-car "teams" make this a "team sport" NASCAR's going to need to figure out how to deal with it.

Any ideas on how they do that? I think it was bullshit, but NASCAR touts itself as a team sport. What MWR did was the ultimate "team" move. The only rule NASCAR has about self induced actions that bring out a caution is that individual car cannot benefit from the caution coming out (causing the caution to receive the lucky dog, to not have to pit under green to fix a problem with the car, etc). How can you penalize a car for spinning out (prove he purposely did it) when it didn't benefit him to do it? Or tell a team they can't pit to look at a problem because screwing themselves is going to move the people up in order that are running behind them? Or go super stupid and penalize the teams that are owned by the same owner running in front of their teammate that brought out the caution? In this case it would have been 100% completely unfair to punish Truex for something he had no knowledge of nor took part in. The whole thing is ****ed and I see no way of fixing it for everyone fairly.

I don't think there's a single person that watched what happened and has since learned about what all went on with the 15 and 55 teams and not conclude that it was all calculated by MWR to get Truex into the Chase, but what they did didn't keep Newman from winning the race or keep him and Gordon out of the Chase. Newman himself said they lost the race on pit road. When Bowyer spunout the 39 team had complete control over their own destiny and blew it. Gordon and the 24 team missed the Chase by one point because they ran like a fringe top 10 team all year, didn't win a race, and the 22 did.

MWR engineered (to the best of their ability given the circumstances) a way to get the 55 team into the Chase. It is considered bullshit by most NASCAR fans, but they did what they could as an organization to get another team into the Chase to compete for the championship. When you look at what it is they did in the short amount of time they had to figure it out it was pretty damn impressive what they pulled off, but it only happened and was possible because their competition shit the bed.

Count me in as one of those that thinks it was bullshit and not something I want to see again, but how do you prove it, police it, and then retroactively enforce it by taking away Truex's spot in the Chase in a sport that won't even take away a win from a team when they are found to have won a race with an illegal car for the sake of wanting the people at the track to leave knowing who won the race (which is a stated NASCAR policy)?

I really don't. We all have ideas, but the best answer is to not have teams - and that ain't gonna happen. About the only thing left is to go the baseball route and have officials make-up rules as they go along. Or, in a case like this, when it's this obvious, ban the whole team if it looks this obvious, or just let them turn it into a wreck-fest. Or in this case, put the ****ed people into the chase and yank the others. That might cause a lot more damage than fix things, but if it's going to remain a team sport, like all team sports, the who team suffers an infraction by one...